Demon rum visits The Agoga

The Agoga Auditorium of Evansville, Ind., was the 1946 home of The River City Rollers, a local roller-hockey team made up of dropouts and miscreants who donned roller skates to do battle with visiting teams every Saturday night.

Sunday was The Lord’s Day at the Agoga. That’s the day when Brother Alfred Smith and his “Angels,” swept the floor of candy wrappers and popcorn containers and set up rows of folding chairs bearing the seat message ‘Fine Funerals at Bargain Prices,’ as donated by mortician Rudolph Ziemer in a moment of deductible fervor.

"Are my sermons too short at only two and a half hours?’ he wondered. "Is the flock looking for brighter and gamier stuff? Would I have ‘em in the palm of my hand if I descended to their level and wiped my brow after reciting all of the ‘begats’ in the Book of Matthew?"

In response to a random thought, Brother Smith locked himself in his office all of 20 minutes to write a whiz-bang sermon; a manifesto of Goodness filled with Hope, Fear and Wholesome Guilt designed to sicken Satan and put Paper Money … not them jingling coins … in the offering bucket.

The next Sunday morning, with members seated and waiting, Brother Smith turned on his widest smile and took his place at the lectern. He placed his bible and his notes on the counter top, then, to gasps and “I’ll have one’s” heard throughout the hall, he took a bottle plainly marked WHISKEY from a paper bag under his arm.

Holding the bottle aloft for all to see, he sat it on the lectern then, turned aside to offer his hand to a grinning Uncle Cleroy who sat in a funeral home chair beside the lectern.

“Brother Cleroy is a guest sinner. He's not just an ordinary sinner like the rest of us, No, Sir. And, he ain’t some giddy wine connoisseur I drug in off ‘a the street. He’s an all ‘round sinner and a genuine professional drinker. He drinks. He smokes. Sometimes … bless him … he even uses salty language like 'Rackety Frack’ and 'GolDangIt.' ”

“Like many of you fellers out there in your Sunday suits and grits on your neckties, Cleroy learned to drink with the help of bartenders at the Friendly Inn, a place known for sticky floors and watered whiskey.

“Some of you know the Friendly Inn all to well,” he said, with a stern look at Brother Brook Barton, a man who took pride in having slept in every cell at the Vanderburgh County jail.

“What’s in that bottle,” said Brother Smith, pointing at the whiskey bottle, "is ‘Demon Rum.’ They serve Demon Rum and worse, at the Friendly Inn. That place is a challenge to the good in all of us.“

His hand trembling in righteous fury, Brother Smith held his nose and stamped his feet. Caught up in his own message, Brother Smith grabbed the bottle and shook it roughly; an innocent vessel that could, just as easily, have held Ovaltine or Milk of Magnesia.

Enjoying the scene, a White Lighting coal miner fresh from Madisonvile, Ky., who wasn’t accustomed to being out in civilized society, slapped his leg and guffawed.

“Brother Smith,” interrupted Cleroy, standing and pointing at the bottle, “I know a little something about bottles, and I can tell you that there bottle ain’t Demon Rum. It’s Uncle Fred’s Friendship Tonic and Bowl Cleaner. It was bottled in a horse barn in Lexington yesterday and rushed up here overnight to preserve the flavor.”

Taking a deep breath and blinking his eyes to stop the stinging and burning, Cleroy continued, “Uncle Fred’s Tonic ain’t rum. It’s whiskey. It ain’t no aperitif or some fancy liqueur that little girls sip from clean glasses. Uncle Fred’s Tonic is working man’s whiskey. It’ll blister paint, unclog drains and cause the noblest of men to sing ‘Frankie and Johnny’ and dance with sidewalk stewardesses.”

“Have you tasted Uncle Fred’s Tonic, Brother Cleroy?”

“Yes, Sir. I reckon I’ve drunk a barrel or two of it. Hand me that bottle and I’ll show you how its done.”

More chuckles from the folding chairs.

Feeling that he was losing control, Brother Smith declared in a loud voice, “Now, Cleroy, you know I’ve asked you here, not to drink, but to sit beside me as a bad example. Is that right?”

“Yes, Sir,” Cleroy replied with a grin. “I’m hoping the experience will do you some good.”

More chuckles. Louder and longer.

“You, Sir,” said Brother Smith, “represent all the ills of alcohol. How do you feel about that?”

Shaking his head in sacramental sympathy, Brother Smith motioned to Cleroy to take a seat in the front pew. Then, he began his sermon.

“Folks, you’ve seen and heard my friend, Cleroy, here today. Cleroy’s a professional drinker, here to help me throw some light on alcohol abuse.”

Angered at Demon Rum and any bottle that contains it, two paper-fanned and Maybellined ladies in the second row, who had never known the guilty pleasure of a social buzz, began fanning furiously, setting hanging banners to swinging, while “innocent” husbands on each side of them shuffled their feet and stared at the ceiling.

Satan, the bearded and scuzzy vagrant clad in a Friendly Inn t-shirt, was seated just outside the door. Realizing Brother Smith was onto him, Satan was seen to run from the place at a speed olympian Jesse Owens wouldn’t have thought possible

“Alcohol makes men want to play cards, smoke them big, stinky cigars and blow smoke all over the living room. Every woman here will tell you that cigar smoke rots the drapes, ruins lives and gives the cat diarrhea. Just look at what its done to Ma Perkins and Our Gal Sunday.”

“Oh, me,” came the voice of a woman in the center section. “That’s my Herbert. He smokes them Mucho Cubano Stinkers. They’re coal black and about a foot long and fat, like a cucumber. They throw off dark gray smoke like a tire fire at the dump. The stench is just awful, and his breath puts a film on the picture window and loosens the wall paper.”

When the sermon was over, Brother Smith stood at the door to wish his flock well.

“Mighty fine work, Pastor” said a man wearing two hearing-aid devices. “Couldn’t hear much of it, but that’s a good lookin’ suit you’re wearing, and if you got no further use for that bottle, I’ll be happy to take it home with me.”

“I just wish my late husband could have been here for this sermon,” said Hilda Snipe, whose late husband, Arthur, spent more time in the drunk tank than in her bed.

And so it went that Sunday in 1946 at the Agoga Tabernacle and Skating Rink, in Evansville, Ind., home of the Landing Ship Tank (LST) of World War II fame and Burdette Amusement Park & Swimming Pool, where a person could purchase Cook’s Beer, liverwurst sandwiches and homemade ice cream at a buck a pop.

Staring at the two-piece bathing suits was free.

Moral: Paper fans in the hands of riled up women can make banners sway and parishioners thirsty.